Some Distinguishing Characteristics

As the name implies, existentialism is a philosophy of existence. It should be noted, however, that the word existence is used in a restricted sense. In ordinary speech, one says that stars exist, trees exist, cows exist, men and women exist, and so on of everything that has a place in the spatiotemporal world. The existentialist restricts the term to the human existent. By doing this, there is no intention to suggest that stars, trees, cows and the like are unreal. The existentialist only wants to draw attention to the fact that their being is quite different from the being of a human person. When an existentialist speaks of a human being as "existing," he or she is taking the word in what may be supposed to be the original etymological sense of "standing out." Stars and the like have their being simply by lying around...